Washington Wizards Rumors: Inking Garrett Temple a Wise Move

By Cody Williams

Tim Fuller – USA Today Sports Images

Garrett Temple was hardly a superstar for the Washington Wizardslast season. In fact, he really didn’t have that great of an effect on the Wizards at all. His biggest purpose last season was platooning minutes at shooting guard while Bradley Beal was out with injuries at the end of the season.

However, according to the Washington Post, the Wizards and Temple have agreed to a one-year, $900,000 contract for next season, with all of that money being guaranteed.

On the surface, it’s kind of hard to comprehend why the Wizards would bother bringing back a 27-year-old guard who played in 51 games for them last season and, in 22.7 minutes per game, averaged only 5.1 points. 2.3 assists and one steal per game on just 40.7 percent shooting and 32.5 percent three-point shooting.

When you consider the context of this deal with Temple, though, it’s actually not too surprising and, in reality, makes a great deal of sense for them going forward.

On Tuesday the Wizards agreed to a four-year, $22 million contract with small forward Martell Webster. Though most people agree that’s a good signing for Washington going forward, it’s also probably a little bit higher of a price than the Wizards would ideally want to pay for Webster. That means they have a little less cap-room to work with.

Because they have a little less cap-room, the Wizards needed to be conservative in filling out their roster with role players. Temple is a player who, obviously, comes at a cheap rate, but also fits into the defensive-minded philosophy in Washington and isn’t completely incompetent in other areas of the game.

Temple is never going to be a player that the Wizards are going to depend on next season and that’s a good thing. However, there’s no reason to believe he can’t be a guy to come in and play minutes off the bench and hold things down defensively. For a one-year deal at less than $1 million, that’s a good deal for Washington.